Introduction

Abstract

Ancient Man, the hunter and gatherer of nuts and herbs, was himself the natural prey of his carnivorous animal neighbours; no doubt he had considerable reluctance in accepting this state of affairs. In time, however, he discovered that by the better co-ordinated use of his forelimbs he could fashion first weapons and later tools which allowed him to master his enemies and his immediate environment. Thus he learnt to manufacture, to “make with his hands”: since then he has never faltered, because of the unique phenomenon of “feed-back” which enabled the brain to develop in response to the message from the hands, in turn guiding the hands to ever greater skills by virtue of the reasoning power developed by the enlarging forebrain.